Danconia Media Blog
At Danconia Media, we spend a lot of time researching marketing and web design trends so we can always stay current. Most of what we encounter is written for industry professionals, not regular businesspeople. This blog is meant to help business owners and managers seeking marketing and design information free of jargon. If you'd like to recommend topics for us to cover, please shoot us an email.
Google Instant Preview and Its Effect on SEO
Yesterday, Google rolled out a new feature that allows users to preview web pages without clicking on the links. It's one of several changes the world's most popular search engine has unveiled in recent months that is favorable to websites that provide valuable content. Instant previews make having a well-designed website more vital than ever: If users don't like the way your preview looks, they're likely to not click through to your site.
When visitors type queries, they're now given the option to preview the results by clicking on or hovering over a magnifying glass icon. The previews appear to be the latest cached version of the web pages. So, if you've just modified a web page, it could take days or more for Google to display the altered version as a preview. The frequency that your site is indexed depends on how important Google deems it; the more quality links you have pointing to it, the better off you are.
Joomla! 1.6 Beta Version Released
Yesterday, the Joomla Project released the beta 9 version of Joomla 1.6. Version 8 was released on August 23, and about 70 bugs in it have been resolved in the latest release. The community expects Joomla 1.6 beta 10 to be released on September 20.
Make Your Data Come to Life with FusionCharts
If you have data to showcase, it can be quite challenging to capture your viewers' attention. Few things make people's eyes glaze over faster than traditional charts. One way to display data in a more exciting way is by using FusionCharts, which use Flash animation to make data lively.
Save Yourself a Headache: Purchase Your Own Domain Name
When you're dealing with an outside firm for your web work, it's very important that you maintain ownership of your domain. If you plan to launch a website and don't yet have the domain, buy it on your own before contracting with a web development company. In a perfect world, this wouldn't be an issue, but contractual relationships can turn sour and not having control over your domain could seriously hinder your business's progress.
Purchasing your own domain name couldn't be much easier. There are a wide variety of sites – including GoDaddy, NameCheap, Network Solutions and Yahoo! Domains – where you can purchase the domains within minutes using your credit card. Pricing varies, but it's usually in the $10 range. You can purchase ownership for several years at a time or be charged a small amount annually. Domain ownership is not the same as hosting.
While the purchasing process is simple, finding a decent domain that's available can be quite frustrating. For some of our clients, we research domains and then recommend they buy them on their own so they can be sure they'll maintain control no matter what. If a firm has a problem with this approach, you really have to wonder whether it's wise to do business with them.
A Wise Investment: A CMS to Maintain Your Site
Today, very few businesses can get away with having a static site that never gets updated. If you want your website to generate revenue, rather than just look pretty, it's essential that yours is able to be easily updated. You can pay a firm by the hour or on retainer to do the updates for you, but the easier, and more economical, way to go about it is to invest in a content management system (CMS), which can be used by novices to add, modify and remove content.
Why is keeping your site updated so important?
